by Joan Smith
“And we have been scheming all the while to dig up a pair of paste beads!” Marcia exclaimed, the whole truth at last penetrating her whirling mind. “The woman was a monster!” she decreed and would have claimed her insane too, but for the last fifty thousand to be accounted for.
“A cursed rum touch,” Mr. Blandings said, rubbing his chin, then he let out a merry peal of laughter. “Ha, she fooled you, wee wifie. And you’d have had me robbing a corpse of a pair of glass beads. Famous! ‘Pon my word, I never heard of such a thing.”
Silence fell, and every eye turned to Mr. Fletcher for the final clause of the will. “Now for the last of it,” he said, scanning the nether part of the page and shaking his head. “’To whomever shows the initiative of digging up my mortal remains, opening the wooden coffin, the steel chest, and stealing the paste necklace, I leave the remainder of my fortune, fifty thousand pounds.’”
A hush fell on the room. The first to grasp this outrage was the Trump. “Congratulations, Captain!” he said, rising and going to shake Jonathon’s hand.
Jonathon stood, gulping and looking paralyzed with shock. “Me! You mean to say she’s rewarding me for digging her up! She was crazed!”
“This proves she was insane!” Marcia joined in at once.
“As shrewd as she could hold together,” her bridegroom contradicted her. “A very interesting will, when all’s said and done. There’s a woman as knew the value of a penny. Anyone foolish enough to let a fortune stay buried in the ground don’t deserve to have it.”
“But you refused to dig it up for me!” wee wifie reminded him.
“She was a step ahead of us all the way,” he admitted, shaking his head at the knowledge that there had existed a mind with more turns than his own. “A rare wonderful old woman she must have been. I wish I had known her. I made sure it was the paste beads she’d buried, and thought it was a trick to punish whoever dug her up, but she was a deep ‘un. What we’d have had to do was know she’d buried the paste beads, then go a step further and figure the rest of it. It never occurred to me. Never once entered my head, and I don’t figure myself a slow one.”
“I was similarly fooled,” Hillary admitted. “I thought the test was to see which would show such disrespect as to plunder her grave. But she preferred the man with the initiative to steal to one who would let the diamonds go to waste. Well, it makes a perverse sort of sense.”
“Now you say so,” his bride challenged him, “but you would never lift a finger to help me and Loo get them.”
“Mea culpa!” he said humbly. “I was certainly misguided. Loo is fifty thousand poorer because of me.”
“No, I’m not!” she said at once. “I didn’t plan to dig her up when I thought I had just the one diamond! I wouldn’t have touched the grave for the world if I’d known I had the whole necklace. I hope I am not greedy. This is much fairer, for really Jonathon was gypped to get only Swallowcourt in such a poor state.”
“There may be hope for you yet,” Sir Hillary complimented her noblesse.
“She did more than enough for us.” Gabriel added his pleasure at the outcome.
“And you mean to say I get fifty thousand pounds!” Jonathon said, still not quite able to assimilate so much good news after the fears that had haunted him. “Fifty thousand pounds! I’m rich.”
“Congratulations,” Hillary said, offering his hand. “I doubt you will believe it, but I am very happy. I have felt from the beginning you were robbed by her letting Swallowcourt disintegrate so.”
Jonathon accepted the hand and murmured some acknowledgment of the congratulations. Everyone but Marcia seemed well pleased at the outcome.
“We’ll pick up the Beresford necklace if you’ve a mind for it, love.” the Trump whispered in her ear. “I daresay the little lady will be happy to sell it, though we’ll get a better price if we ain’t too eager.”
Mr. Fletcher took the captain and Gabriel aside to consult with them as to the manner in which they would like to receive their fortunes—whether in stocks and bonds or cash, for Gabriel would look after Loo’s monies. Hillary was asked to help Gabriel decide, and it was half an hour before the whole party gathered in the Crimson Saloon to celebrate.
“All’s well that ends well,” Sir Hillary said. “The ladies all got a jewel and a husband; the gentlemen a jewel of a wife—with the exception of Jonathon, who may now marry where he likes. I daresay Sophie is pleased as punch to have fooled us all, and Fletcher must be the happiest of the lot to be done with this confounded will.”
A strange, eerie sound seemed to come simultaneously from all corners of the room. It was not loud, but perfectly audible—a sound of ghostly laughter. It reached a crescendo, then subsided.
“Shall we all drink a toast to Sophie?” Thoreau asked. “And I trust, old girl, this will be your last performance.”
“To Aunt Sophie!” they said in unison and grimaced simultaneously as they swallowed the horrid wine.
Copyright © 1977 by Joan Smith
Originally published by Fawcett Crest in 1977
Electronically published in 2004 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
http://www.RegencyReads.com
Electronic sales: [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.